


And This Is How It Starts.

by missgrangerinthetardis



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: 1940s, F/M, Post-Episode: s07e05 The Angels Take Manhattan
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-25
Updated: 2015-06-26
Packaged: 2018-04-06 04:04:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4207191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missgrangerinthetardis/pseuds/missgrangerinthetardis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sent back in time by the angel, Amy finds her way back to Rory. But life after that isn't what they expected - because the story of Amelia Pond has only just started. And it's full of surprises.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Finding My Way Back To You

**And This Is How It Starts.**

 

**_Prologue_ **

 

There’s a little girl waiting in a garden. She’s going to wait a long while, but she’s been given a lot of hope: she’s been told about how she will go to see and fight pirates, how she’ll fall in love with a man who will wait 2000 years to keep her safe. 

She’s been told that she’ll give hope to the greatest painter who ever lived, that she will save a whale in outer space. 

She’s been told that those would be the days that she will never forget.

That this is the story of Amelia Pond.

But this is not how it ends. No. Her story has only just begun.

 

* * *

**_Finding My Way Back To You_ **

 

She was a bit disorientated at first. It was dark, yes, but that wasn't it. Well, she knew she had been sent back in time, possibly even to a different place - and yet she somehow felt different. Like she didn't really belong here. Funny how after all that time on board the TARDIS, constantly visiting places she most definitely didn’t belong, this was the first time she actually felt like it. She quickly brushed off that thought, realising that it must’ve been the way she had travelled. There were more pressing matters at hand. 

Rory had to be here somewhere. At least she hoped so, he could have also been sent to a different - “No,” she quietly said to herself, “don’t even go there.” She couldn’t start worrying too much now, or she’d be a sobbing ball of panic on the dirty street within seconds. 

It had been the same angel - and a weak one at that, the Doctor had said. The Doctor… no, there it was again, the panic, climbing up her throat, making her shut her eyes, grasp at her head and mumble out a seemingly never ending string of “no, no, no, no, no, no” in an attempt to block out every single memory that tried to force its way to her mind - until finally one made it through. 

Delight. Her wedding day. Her laughter mingled with… Rory’s. 

She held onto that thought while she released her hair from her rigid fingers and slowly opened her eyes.

She needed to find him. Obviously they hadn’t been sent to the same place - but she wouldn’t dare thinking there was any chance he wasn’t out there searching New York for her as thoroughly as she was planning to do. Unless… he still didn’t believe in her love and thought she’d stayed with the Doctor. No. She had proven her love just minutes ago by jumping off of that building with him. 

And if he wasn’t looking for her - she’d just have to look twice as hard. 

They’d be back together. She’d find her way back to him.

Seeing as she didn’t really have anywhere to go and sleep for this night, she decided to just start right away. She quickly formulated a plan and headed towards her first destination.

 

* * *

 

A few hours later saw Amy wandering in the general direction of where she thought Central Park to be. She’d planned on visiting every location she remembered going to with the Doctor and Rory. 

The problem was that she had no idea where to find those places. First, they’d come to Mr. Grayle’s house with the TARDIS, so no way of knowing where that was to find, then she’d been too worried about Rory to memorise the way to Winter Quay as they were driving there… and she wasn't sure if she wanted to face the cemetery yet, even if that was probably the easiest to find.

So after hours of walking around, she’d come to the decision that she needed a break. Her feet hurt, her back even more, and she was tired of hiding in the shadows in order to avoid muggers and murderers (who knew what kind of people walked around New York in the middle of the night?). 

When dawn came, Amy tried thinking of the places she knew in this city that could have already opened. She wasn’t completely sure when exactly she was, but her late night stroll around the city had told her enough to assume that it was close to the time when she, Rory, the Doctor, and River had been there. It certainly looked a lot like that. So she needed to come up with a public place that she could easily find. 

And suddenly she remembered Central Park and their picnic there. So many things had happened between now and then that she had completely forgotten about it… 

“Right, Central Park… that can’t be too difficult to find…”, she mumbled to herself. Being all alone in a big dark city at night, she had somehow taken to talking to herself. She missed having someone else to talk to, and she certainly couldn't wait to finally find Rory.

Rory. A big wave of hope rushed over her. Maybe Central Park was where she was going to find him! Despite her aching feet she doubled her pace, which didn’t really mean much because she was extremely exhausted and hadn’t been walking very fast to begin with, but she still gave everything in her quest to find that park. 

It was the last place they had been where everything was alright and they made happy jokes - before everything went wrong. If she were Rory, this would have been the first place she’d have visited to remember her loved ones.

In the morning light she even came across some early risers who had come out to take a morning walk, and looked nice enough, so she asked them for directions. They had looked a bit frightened at the girl running towards them and stammered out their response in a confused manner, then looked curiously after her. 

When she finally made it to the park, she sighed in relief. One step closer. She couldn’t wait to get back to Rory, but after her running around the city, she wasn’t able to hold the pace she had been walking before. So she strolled through the park, coming across the bridge the Doctor and she had been on while reading River’s book, then, after another thirty minutes, she could see the hill where they had all been sitting on while having a picnic, and she picked up her pace again.

So far she couldn’t see anyone sitting or standing there, but maybe Rory would be behind the hill… he just had to be. She was getting nearer and nearer. But even as she approached the hill, Rory was nowhere in sight. 

She sat down in defeat. Everything that had been held back by the small glimmer of hope of finding Rory again came back full force. She suddenly felt the pain in her feet, she was incredibly hungry, and she had to close her eyes against the sudden burning feeling of approaching tears, which only served to make her feel even more tired. 

So she lay back and let her tears carry her to sleep.

 

* * *

 

She woke up to being crushed into a desperate hug by another person. 

“Whoa, someone’s eager this morning,” she said groggily. It wasn’t rare that she woke up with Rory kissing her awake.

Wait. She opened her eyes to see he had stopped hugging her and now watched her confused and concerned. 

“Rory!”, she all but screamed, lunging at him again. “I found you.”

He clung to her as desperately as she did to him. “How did you - how are you here?”, he stuttered into her hair.

“Same as you.” She pulled back. “It was the same angel. I couldn’t imagine being without you, so I let that angel touch me to get back to you. There was room for one more name, Rory. I knew it was a slim chance that it would actually work, but it was worth a shot, right?” She smiled weakly. 

Over his shoulder she could see a woman coming slowly towards them and eyeing them curiously. Well, they had to make a weird sight, no wonder people were staring, so Amy pushed that thought to the back of her mind and finally gave in to the urge to kiss Rory. They hadn’t been apart for a long time, and yet the desperation of thinking they’d never see each other again made it seem as if it had been years.

Eventually Rory pulled away with a soft, “Amy”. Touching his forehead to hers he said, “It’s been such a long year, Amy.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello readers! (If you've read until now - thank you!)  
> Well, this is my first attempt at really writing fanfiction! I would love to hear what you think of it so far, and I'd appreciate any kind of criticism, good or bad, to help me get better! :)  
> I've been looking for good fics of Amy and Rory's life after TATM, but I couldn't find much (if you know of any really good stories, let me know!) so I decided to try writing one myself - that way I can turn this into whatever I want it to be ;)  
> English is not my first language, and this isn't beta'd, so I just want to say that all mistakes are mine!  
> I have two more chapters already written out, another one is on its way, and I have a few very good ideas for this story that I'd love to share with you!
> 
> Disclaimer: Sadly, I don't own Doctor Who, nor do I own any of the characters used in this story. It all belongs to the BBC ... *sigh*


	2. Talking

****

 

“A year?!” She couldn’t believe it. The angel had sent her so close to Rory - same city, same time period - yet couldn’t have managed to get the timing right? Amy remembered that little smirk on the angel’s face… Now she was properly furious. “That stupid angel has done it on purpose!”

“Calm down, Amy, there’s nothing to do about that now. And you wouldn’t want anyone here thinking you’re crazy, right?” Rory chuckled a bit.

“Right,” Amy returned his bright smile. At least she was with him again.

“So, everything alright?”

Amy jumped at the sound of another voice breaking into their conversation. It came from not so far away and Amy noticed that it belonged to the woman she had seen walking towards them before.

“Oh, Mary! Sorry, yeah, everything’s fine. Um, this is Amy Pond, a friend from back home -“ Amy raised her eyebrows at him, that woman had definitely seen the kiss, so it was obvious they’re not just ‘friends’; and by the way she was mimicking Amy’s expression with a smirk, the woman knew exactly what they were, “- whom I somehow lost touch with last year, so this was sort of surprising… Anyway, this is Mary Young, a neighbour of mine. She came here a few years ago from London.” Mary gave a little wave which Amy returned. 

The young woman had her long light brown hair in big curls with a peek-a-boo bang, and she smiled with a big mouth and a twinkle in her brown eyes. She was dressed in what Amy assumed was pretty normal for that time period, a navy blue dress with its skirt coming down to just below her knees and brown Oxfords. 

“Yeah, can’t really afford to go back - not the best place to live your life here,” Mary laughed.

‘My thoughts exactly,’ Amy thought, though she couldn’t think of a reason why Mary wouldn’t want to be there. Being from a different time, Amy knew of privileges that she might never be able to have again, but for a woman from the 40’s, New York must be an amazing place to spend your life.

Mary must’ve sensed Amy’s slight wariness because she quickly went to explain, “You know, with my family so far away, and most of my friends don’t live here either…” She trailed off, and it was clear that she was extremely uncomfortable with the way Amy was staring at her.

Okay, Amy seriously needed to stop being so paranoid. Travelling with the Doctor had really made her suspect the worst in every situation she found herself in. 

At this point, Rory decided to speak up. “Why don’t we head back to my flat for a cup of tea? Maybe you and Mary can get to know each other a bit better, and I can tell you all about this past year?”

“Oh, no, I don’t want to intrude on your romantic reunion!” Mary winked and laughed at their blushing faces. 

They made their way back to their building and Mary turned to Amy when they arrived on their floor. 

“Maybe you would like to meet up sometime, get a coffee or something? I’d really like to meet you properly, Amy! Can’t rely only on what Rory has told me about you to decide if you’re good enough for him, yeah?” She was joking, Amy could see that, but as Mary turned and disappeared into her flat with a final wave, Amy eyed Rory curiously.

“What? We both didn’t really have anyone here, so we kind of turned to each other for everything - we’ve become each other’s family, kind of… I may have told her our romantic story and how we’ve been separated, never to be together again… And, you know, we kind of comforted each other, because you know what? She’s also been separated from her loved one and thinks she can never see him again. He’s back in England, and they both don't have the money to go to each other! She never told me how she came to be here though… Anyway, this is where I’ve been living for the past few months.” 

They were by now standing in a small room that contained a small table with two chairs, an even smaller kitchen area, and a single bed in a corner with a chest right next to it. Only one window lit the room and there were only two doors, one of them was the still open front door, the other, as Rory told her, led to a simple bathroom.

“Oh look at that, back to the single bed,” Amy chuckled. “Just like old times when we had our bunk beds and we would have to snuggle close to fit into one…” 

In a few quick moves, Rory closed the door, stepped close to Amy and put both of his hands on either side of her face, “I have waited two thousand years for you - and yet that was nothing compared to this one year thinking I would never see you again.” He brushed his lips over hers softly, and Amy could feel how much it meant to him being able to finally touch her again. When he pulled back a bit, it wasn’t too far because Amy’s arms were now tightly wrapped around his waist. 

“I feel bad about you having to wait so long when for me it was only yesterday that we happily woke up together…”

“That doesn’t really matter now - I’ve got you back! It’s like one of those times when I died and came back again… just that you are the one who died this time. At least from my perspective. Remember how happy you were those times? At least I hope you were happy then…” They both chuckled a bit at that. “I have so much to tell you… but all of that honestly has to wait right now because I am finally holding my wife in my arms again - and you so cleverly mentioned snuggling closely in my bed…” 

He wiggled his eyebrows then and Amy finally allowed herself to laugh with him until his lips closed over hers and he slowly moved her backwards towards the bed. There wouldn’t be much time for serious conversation for a few hours.

 

!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!

 

She woke up hours later to Rory watching her with a soft smile on his lips.

“Morning,” he greeted her, “I knew you were a long sleeper, but this is very long - even for you.”

“Try hiking New York for twenty-four hours straight, napping a few short hours then go back to the hiking part and end that with hours of passionate love making,” she countered groggily but still with a twinkle in her eyes.

“Been there, done that.” Rory’s content smile died the moment he saw Amy pushing herself up on her elbows and looking over at him with raised eyebrows and an accusing glare. “No. No! That’s not what I meant, I-“ he sputtered, but Amy had already fallen into a fit of laughter.

“Oh, Rory, it never gets old! You’re so self conscious,” she laughed, but Rory could tell she didn’t mean it in a mean way. She never did. She let herself fall back down next to him. “Anyway… It’s been a year! I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love that I didn’t find you here with someone new, but… a year, Rory! Didn’t you lose hope that I might not come back to you or something?”

“I don’t know, I suppose I was still grieving - I’d been here for months and the Doctor and you still hadn’t shown up, so I thought you couldn’t get to me at all or had already given up finding the right time… Either way, I prepared myself to never see you again. It was as if you’d died - and don’t you ever think I’d go and find myself some new woman the moment you’re not in the picture anymore!”

“I should hope so…” Amy had gone quiet. “You know, you were right about something. Do you remember how hard it was for the Doctor to land the TARDIS in New York in the 30’s that day? Probably not, you weren’t with us then… but New York is full of paradoxes around this time, so the Doctor really can’t ever come back to get us. We’ll never see him again…” 

“So we’re stuck here?”

It took Amy some time to answer. “Yeah.” The corners of her mouth turned down with the realisation and Rory quickly gathered her in his arms and held her. After a few moments, Amy buried her mouth in his shoulder and mumbled, “You know what? I’m stuck with you, and that’s not so bad, right?”

“Right,” came the answer, and Amy strengthened her hold on him, content in just lying there a few more minutes.

“So, tell me about that Mary girl,” Amy spoke up eventually. She was curious about what Rory had been up to, and that woman seemed to be most interesting right now.

“Well, as I’ve said, we’re kind of like family. Her family is back in England, and I’ve told her the same about mine. Let me tell you, it was so hard to find a believable equivalent of what had happened that I could tell people without them declaring me crazy… So when I met Mary - that was a few days after I arrived here at my flat - I just told her that my parents had sent me here. I told her how my parents had found out about my secret sweetheart and wanted me as far away from you as possible, so they surprised me one night and forced me to leave England with no money to return because I should find a respectable woman-“

“Wait,” Amy interrupted, “so she probably thinks I’m some weirdo?”

“No! Unlike my parents, Mary has nothing against ginger Scottish girls,” Rory grinned.

Amy laughed. “And she believed you that your parents don’t let you marry me because I’m ginger?”

“Well, mostly the ‘my parents hate Scotland so much’ part of it, yeah. Mary says she’s met many nice ginger people before, and she has fond memories of Scotland, so I don’t think you have to worry too much about her not liking you. Plus, I’ve been telling her all about you ever since Mary and I became friends. Couldn’t stop talking about you. I know a lot about her lover as well.”

“Yeah, you mentioned they don’t have enough money to get back to each other?”

“Yes. Mary has two jobs at the moment to get enough money to make the trip. During the day she works at a book shop near Central Park and as soon as the sun goes down she’s at clubs singing until the early morning hours… Don’t ask me how she does it. Today’s her day off. She doesn’t really want to tell me why she’s here in the first place, she just said ‘It’s a bit like your story’.”

“She seems nice, though.”

“Yeah, we spend a lot of time together - well, as much as we can with what little time she has left with her two jobs.”

“What do you do anyway? Back to being a nurse?” 

“Yes, actually! Not many male nurses this time around, but I have the knowledge and didn’t really feel like learning something different and getting no payment while still learning it. I was trying to get enough money to get back to England with Mary. I figured, either you’ll come and pick me up before that or I’ll at least stick with my one and only friend here in the 40’s.”

There was a knock at the door. “Rory? It’s Mary. Is Amy still there? I have to be at the book store in two hours but I thought we could go and eat lunch together. Me and Amy, that is. If you haven’t forgotten, your shift starts in half an hour, so you’d better get up!”

“It’s almost lunch time?” Amy practically jumped out of bed. 

“I didn’t realise either!” Ripping open the top drawer of the chest Rory realised he didn’t really have anything that Amy could possibly wear in this time period. “Um… Amy? You might want to ask Mary if you can borrow some clothes from her…” 

“Aren’t you going to open the door?,” Mary called, “Or are you not decent yet?” You could hear the grin on Mary’s face.

“Actually, would you mind lending me some clothes? I, um, didn’t take anything with me when I came here… I had to, um, sell all my things so I could afford the tickets,” Amy helplessly looked at Rory, unsure of whether that was believable enough.

Mary chuckled. “Er, ok… I’ll be right back.”

“You can use some of the money I put aside to go shopping this afternoon, if you want to. Get your own clothes…” Rory pointed at a kitchen drawer. “It’s in there. I only have one key, um,” he scratched his neck, “I could give it to you if you promise you’ll be back here at the flat at, let’s see, seven? I can ask to leave early today so you won’t be alone too long.”

“Yeah, sounds good.” Amy thought for a moment. “Don’t you think it’s weird, Mary wanting to get to know me to, and I quote, ‘decide if I’m good enough for you’?”

“Nah, she just cares for me a lot. Like a sister. She worries. Who knows, maybe she didn’t believe me when I said my parents hated you because you’re Scottish and ginger. Maybe she wants to make sure you really aren’t a ‘weirdo’, as you put it,” he mused and smiled at her.

“We’ll see how it goes then,” Amy said, not really convinced. 

This was going to be a long day.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you like this chapter. I hope you like Mary, and I hope I didn't write Amy and Rory too OOC... as I said , it's my first fic ever, so I guess I'm not used to writing something with characters that already exist, no matter how much I like them :) I'm still learning, so I'd appreciate it if you told me what I can do better, or even what you like!  
> All mistakes are mine - I know I'm not fluent in English yet and I hope I haven't made too many mistakes :)
> 
> Disclaimer (do I have to include this every single time? just a serious question here haha): Unfortunately, the only thing that is mine is the laptop I use to write this story down. All characters belong to the BBC except for the ones I made up to make this story a bit more interesting! ;)

**Author's Note:**

> Hello readers! (If you've read until now - thank you!)  
> Well, this is my first attempt at really writing fanfiction! I would love to hear what you think of it so far, and I'd appreciate any kind of criticism, good or bad, to help me get better! :)  
> I've been looking for good fics of Amy and Rory's life after TATM, but I couldn't find much (if you know of any really good stories, let me know!) so I decided to try writing one myself - that way I can turn this into whatever I want it to be ;)  
> English is not my first language, and this isn't beta'd, so I just want to say that all mistakes are mine!  
> I have two more chapters already written out, another one is on its way, and I have a few very good ideas for this story that I'd love to share with you! 
> 
> Disclaimer: Sadly, I don't own Doctor Who, nor do I own any of the characters used in this story. It all belongs to the BBC ... *sigh*


End file.
